A thought occurred to me in conversation with a friend today. It concerns the structure of one’s life, and how all our lives seem to be a sequence of “big events” with long stretches of abject tedium and/or unpleasantness in between. Abject tedium sometimes isn’t a bad thing; it helps us appreciate the exciting things in life, after all. But the unpleasantness? That I can live without.
These “big events” are what everything always leads towards. And it’s the waiting for them that gets so damn frustrating. Right now, I confidently predict that my next “big event” will be getting a job. This will be closely followed by moving to somewhere I can actually afford that is near aforementioned job. This will be followed by starting said job. From there? Who knows.
There’s also an alternative route, of course. Fail to get job. Run out of money. Get kicked out of house. Turn to life of crime and eating rats. Die in a gutter outside Greggs after being stabbed for small change by someone with more street smarts.
I’m hoping the “alternative route” won’t happen. But it’s a genuine concern, I won’t lie.
It’s these “big events” that define who we are, though. Whether they’re positive or negative has a huge impact on how we feel. My last “big event” was a very negative one and as such I’m still reeling from the effects now. But I’m hoping that’s a signal that the next “big event” will be a good one. And it will be onwards and upwards from there. It’s not an unreasonable assumption, I don’t think, because when you hit rock bottom there’s not many other places you can go besides upwards. And I have been at least taking positive steps to try and kickstart that motion, even if the whole thing is ultimately completely out of my control and will only happen when the great Playhead of Life flicks over into the next bar. Mixing metaphors, I know. But… oh, just shut up.
Despite not being a religious man (despite my primary school’s best efforts) I actually have quite a belief in the power of “fate”, or “Fate” with a capital F if you really want. Some things are supposed to happen. Other things are not supposed to happen. “Fate” is just the sequence of those “big events” happening one after another, leading to an eventual conclusion somewhere. Sometimes we get to make a decision, and “Fate” takes a different path. But sometimes, more often than not, we have to follow the path that’s been set for us. We’re all playing a game of Heavy Rain, in essence. We may take different paths to get to our destination, and sometimes our paths have different consequences, but there’s no cheating the basic storyline of Fate. There’s a beginning. And there’s an end.
It may be something of a cop-out to attribute all the stuff in between the beginning and the end to Fate. And perhaps it’s not. Perhaps we do have more free will than that. But right now, while sitting here waiting and waiting for something wonderful to happen as a result of all the many, many efforts I’ve made to try and force something wonderful to happen? I’m running out of ideas. So if anyone “upstairs” has a grand plan, would they kindly hurry up and get on with it, please?
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